The Selected Letters of John Berryman
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- $39.99
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- $39.99
Publisher Description
A wide-ranging, first-of-its-kind selection of Berryman’s correspondence with friends, loved ones, writers, and editors, showcasing the turbulent, fascinating life and mind of one of America’s major poets.
The Selected Letters of John Berryman assembles for the first time the poet’s voluminous correspondence. Beginning with a letter to his parents in 1925 and concluding with a letter sent a few weeks before his death in 1972, Berryman tells his story in his own words.
Included are more than 600 letters to almost 200 people—editors, family members, students, colleagues, and friends. The exchanges reveal the scope of Berryman’s ambitions, as well as the challenges of practicing his art within the confines of the publishing industry and contemporary critical expectations. Correspondence with Ezra Pound, Robert Lowell, Delmore Schwartz, Adrienne Rich, Saul Bellow, and other writers demonstrates Berryman’s sustained involvement in the development of literary culture in the postwar United States. We also see Berryman responding in detail to the work of writers such as Carolyn Kizer and William Meredith and encouraging the next generation—Edward Hoagland, Valerie Trueblood, and others. The letters show Berryman to be an energetic and generous interlocutor, but they also make plain his struggles with personal and familial trauma, at every stage of his career.
An introduction by editors Philip Coleman and Calista McRae explains the careful selection of letters and contextualizes the materials within Berryman’s career. Reinforcing the critical and creative interconnectedness of Berryman’s work and personal life, The Selected Letters confirms his place as one of the most original voices of his generation and opens new horizons for appreciating and interpreting his poems.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this wide-ranging collection of John Berryman's letters from 1925 to 1971, editors Coleman and McRae provide a revealing window into the poet's mind and work through his own words. Early boarding school letters home to his family are touching (such as one to his younger brother signed "Your big buddy"), while those written early in his career arguing against the inclusion of women writers in an anthology are less charming. Nevertheless, Berryman obviously grew to respect many women writers, as evidenced, for one, by his fawning letters to Adrienne Rich after she wrote positively about his work, one of which ends with the schoolboy-ish "I never wrote to a reviewer before; I hope you won't mind." Also notable is Berryman's missive to Robert Lowell about Dylan Thomas's death, which obviously affected him deeply. Toward the end of the collection (and Berryman's life), the poet offers some affecting and amusing advice to his son Paul, newly arrived at college: "When you have established a reputation for ordinariness, then it will be quite soon enough to reveal that you're not to friends." While the collection is so comprehensive only Berryman's ardent fans will read it cover to cover, it is well worth the serious attention of any literary scholar.
